Twenty Years Later: Choosing Day
by TexanRose
Summary: Mary Eaton, the daughter of Dauntless leaders, goes through her Choosing Day ritual with her parents who wonder what decision she will make. Beatrice/Tris & Four/Tobias


**I haven't read _Divergent_ in years (and still haven't read _Insurgent_ or _Allegiant_), but I saw the movie and this came to me. Sorry if there are inconsistencies with the books.**

**A take on what would have happened if there had been no war.**

**There are a lot of subtleties and hints, but you have to read closely to catch some of them. **

_**Please Review!**_

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Her name is really Mary, but no one has called her that in years. Mary wasn't a Dauntless name; it really wasn't much of a name at all. She was once told that the world used to be filled with Marys. She didn't ask what that meant—she hadn't wanted a lesson from the Erudite uncle who had given her the information—but sometimes she wished she knew another Mary, someone else like her.

Sitting on her bed, she laced up her boots, black leather like her mother's, taking her time to make sure the knots were in the right place. Picking up a brush, she looked in the mirror above her dresser, and stared for a moment before brushing it through once more. It was blondish-brown, the color of both her parents combined. She decided to leave it down, and let it fall free down her back when she was done. She surveyed herself in her mirror one more time before heading down the hall. It was the only mirror in the apartment; she had always thought it was strange that both her parents flinched at their own reflections, unused to the sight after a lifetime in Dauntless.

When she arrived in the kitchen area, she poured herself a cup of coffee and buttered a piece of toast, muttering a good morning to both her parents. Her father murmured back a reply as he looked at the newspaper in front of him, his knuckles white as he gripped the edges. Her mother indulged in a cigarette, the first she had had in months, as she stared into the black mug that held her coffee. Mary sat at her usual place across from her father and automatically took a bite of her breakfast.

She was working on her second piece of toast when her father, who kept staring at the newspaper, finally put it down and asked if she was ready for the day. Yes, she replied calmly. She thought she was. Her mother took a puff of her cigarette. The glowing red and yellow of the end reminded Mary of Amity colors, warm and friendly, while the smoke that disappeared into the air, made her think of drab Abnegation shades. She was still thinking about this when her mother asked her if she was nervous.

No, she answered her mother politely—politeness was a staple in their household—she wasn't nervous. Her mother's expression twisted into one of relief mixed with fear and she looked even deeper into her coffee cup.

Mary finished her second piece of toast and drained the coffee that was left in her mug. She took the dishes to the sink and washed them leaving them on the dish rack to dry. She felt her father's eyes on her as she completed the task. It was as if he was trying to memorize her every movement, her every feature.

She turned her attention back to the table. Her mother had finished her cigarette and was looking anxiously at her father who was slowly getting up from his seat. At that moment, Mary realized how scared her father truly was. He was a young man, not yet forty, and his movements, while often deliberate, were never slow—unless he was preoccupied by something.

Is there something you would like to do, he asked her slowly, before we have to go? There it was, the slowness, again. But Mary paid that no mind. She had been waiting for this question, thinking about it for weeks, wondering what her answer would finally be.

She could tell her father she wanted to throw knives in the training room. Or tell him she wanted to go the Chasm to hear the thundering water drown the voices in her head. She could say she wanted to go to the Pit, to say good-bye to friends who could transfer, that she might never see again. Instead, she took a deep breath before she replied. She wanted to go to Tori's shop.

Her mother's eyebrows flew up in surprise as if it were the last answer she was expecting. But then they gave way to understanding. She sadly smiled as she half-hugged her daughter and led her to the door. Her father closed it behind her with a loud thud. It sounded like finality to Mary's ears.

They made their way to the Pit, expertly navigating through the tunnels in a familiar trek. Her father commented on this piece of news and about that as they made their way to Tori's and her mother responded with inane comments. Mary snapped her head up in surprise. Inane was the last word she would use to describe her mother. It was then that Mary understood how afraid her mother was, recalling that her grandparents lost both their children on the same day.

Mary still saw her grandparents occasionally—sometimes on Visiting Day, sometimes when she spotted them in the city. She knew her uncle, the Erudite, knew that he could be trusted if she ever did need him, and she knew her cousins by name if not by sight. Her other grandparents, her father's family, had died a long time ago.

Looking in front of her, she realized they had reached Tori's shop. The familiar gray-haired woman was with a customer, a middle-aged Dauntless man, but she smiled at the trio and told them to make themselves at home.

Do you know what you want, her father asked her. After a moment of silence, Mary nodded her head. She had spent the entire night thinking about it. In the sleepless hours of the morning, Mary had thought about her fear landscape, the thirteen fears that haunted her. But it was the twelfth fear that made her pause. She had always hated the unknown; that twelfth fear changed every time to accommodate that hatred, that feeling.

She pointed to the Dauntless seal, which made her father smile—a rarity—and her mother laugh softly. She sat in one of the chairs. Because Tori was still busy with a customer, and because Mary wanted her mother to do it, her mother took the needle in her hand and etched the design on her left shoulder. Mary gripped her father's hand as her mother did the work. Her father held onto her fingers tightly as if he was afraid to let her go. Mary almost laughed at her assessment of the situation. Her father was never afraid; it would be ridiculous to describe him as such.

Mary's mother finished her work expertly and quickly. Her hands remained steady despite whatever emotions roiled beneath the surface. Mary gave it a cursory glance as she looked at one of the mirror's Tory had put up. As she put her jacket back on, she surveyed the other tattoos that covered her body. She had three crows on her breastbone like her mother did. The top of her right foot was covered with the word courage while left foot was marked with the word strength. And of course, thought Mary as she zipped up her jacket, she couldn't forget her first tattoo, the one she had gotten on her thirteenth birthday, located on the inside of her left wrist.

Her father looked at her as she finished and her mother put the tools away. His gaze plainly told her it was time to go. She met his gaze with one of her own, one that told her she understood. He squeezed her hand before the family made their way out of the shop and to the train tracks. Before long, the train came speeding by. Mary jumped on like she had done since she was five, but as she joined her parents in the car, a sense of inevitability washed over her.

As she settled into a sitting position, she watched as her parents grip each other's hands, their knuckles turning white. In that moment, Mary remembered that her parents had been training initiates for years, understood what she would have to go through, what they had gone through themselves. And Mary knew that it was time for her to experience it.

The train never stopped, but the Dauntless jumped out of the moving cars to where the Choosing Ceremony would take place. In the swirl of colors, Mary saw pale parents and people from her class, their jaws set in determination. Like her, they had taken their aptitude tests the day before. Like her, they could not reveal the results of their tests. And if they were anything like her, they would not allow their test to dictate their future.

Mary settled herself in the front row of the Dauntless section as she waited for her parents to join her—her mother, an ambassador to Abnegation, spoke with members of that faction while her father, a Dauntless leader, made his way through the factions, formally greeting the people he was expected to talk to today. They joined her as Simon, a coffee-colored Candor man, began the ceremony. The usual speech was given and the same rules were repeated. And Mary listened as names were called one by one.

When her name was called, she got up slowly, silently. Her mother gave her forearm one last squeeze while her father nodded his approval at her; it signaled that she his support for whatever choice she made. Mary breathed a sigh of relief as she made her way up the platform. She stared at the bowls of earth, water, coals, stones, and glass as she cut her palm in a practiced motion. She clenched her palm closed, the blood threatening the drip through the cracks in her fingers. She tightened her hand so that it would, placing it over a bowl. As red blood gushed through her fingertips, she heard cheer go up behind her as Simon made the announcement.

Taking a deep breath, Mary turned around and looked at her parents, shocked and forlorn as she joined a new faction—Amity.

She joined them with a soft smile on her face and breathed a sigh of relief. It was where she belonged. She had spent her entire life fighting, surviving, working so that her body was bruised and bloodied, so that her mind was filled with exhaustion. It was time to rest now, to be happy, to have kindness, to know what it meant to be at peace. Survival would no longer be a struggle; life would be a gift. Maybe she would be able to find other Marys.

As Mary through her clothes into the furnace, later that day after she glanced good-bye at her parents and followed her new faction to their sector, she remembered the last tattoo she got, the Dauntless seal branded onto her body. It was a tribute to her twelfth fear, the fear of the unknown. It was to remind her that although the future could be uncertain, she would always remember where she came from.

And every day that she was a part of Amity, she would remember who she was by looking at the tattoo, her first one, located on the inside of her left wrist. And although the Amity often asked her what it meant, she only told them that it was nothing more than Dauntless scribble. Only she knew that it contained the very essence of her family, of her name.

4+6=10

Her name is really Mary, but no one truly called her that until she joined Amity.

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Tris cried into her pillow the night after her daughter's Choosing Ceremony. She hadn't been certain that Ten would choose Dauntless, but she had hoped. She was her daughter, her daughter and Tobias's. She was _Ten_, the daughter of Four and Six. But she had chosen Amity, the last place Tris would ever have expected. She wondered if this is what her mother felt like on the day Tris had chosen Dauntless and Caleb Erudite.

As her breathing settled back to normal, Tris found solace in her husband's arms and was reminded of her own initiation. Daughters needed to make their own decisions. Nothing a mother wanted could change them anyway.

But she worried about Tobias. Tris knew how much he loved her daughter, _adored_ their daughter. He had hoped that one day she would be a Dauntless leader, that she would be with them forever. She couldn't imagine the pain he felt. She hoped that he didn't think Ten was running away the same way he had.

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The sound of his wife's crying worried Tobias. Tris _never _cried, she never revealed the depth of her pain to anyone. He wanted to tell Tris how much their daughter resembled her. Tobias had learned from Tris that her selflessness gave her strength. Ten had gone on to embrace a different kind of strength.

War was for the Dauntless who strove to be brave, to protect, to defend. But peace was for the Amity, and peace always followed war. It took both kinds of people to complete the balance.

Tobias sighed back his own tears and pulled Tris close to him, enveloping her in his embrace as they steadied their breathing. Ten had made her choice just as he and Tris had made theirs. Everyone makes their own decision. Because no one understands themselves better than they do.


End file.
